


Wish You Were Here

by Nerissa



Category: Wizards of Waverly Place RPF
Genre: Closeted Character, F/M, Implied underage drinking, References to Child Abuse, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-07
Updated: 2011-11-07
Packaged: 2017-11-11 00:32:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerissa/pseuds/Nerissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not really a lie, it's just publicity. They count the days until they're free.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wish You Were Here

Her arm hurts. Her Disney-loaned rep, the one she's nicknamed ApeMan, has a death grip on it. He's marching her through the hotel halls like he's playing the part of a principal to her truant middle-school student; like he's the wicked uncle, and she's the princess in the tower.  
  
"Now look," he says, trying for the paternal touch he's never quite perfected, unless maybe you count that psychotic stepdad in _The Stepfather_ as paternal, in which case suddenly, yeah, she can sort of see it, "I know you aren't a fan of this—"  
  
"Because it's a lie."  
  
"It's _publicity_ ," he corrects. "It's protecting your brand. Hell, it's saving your ass. You've met his fans. You dump him over a rumour like that, and they'll be leaving dead bunnies on your doorstep, or whatever the fuck it is those freaks do when they aren't having sleepovers or giving blowjobs to their Bieber dolls."  
  
 _Only two months left_ , she reminds herself. _Only two months._ Disney or not, she's no princess in a tower; she can outlast this guy for two more months.  
  
"I won't be dumping him over the rumour," she argues. "I'll be dumping him because he's _gay_ , and this is a _lie_. I need . . ." she hesitates.  
  
It's really none of the ApeMan's business what she needs, which is nothing more than room to breathe and swing her arms and remember what it's like not to be shackled at the leg to a nice Canadian boy, or her mother, or the corporate hydra that launched her career, aka the Prozackiest Place on Earth, the Disney corporation.  
  
She needs to be free.  
  
"I need space," she says.  
  
"You NEED," he hauls her around the corner, "to smile and make nice with him because it's London, and there are cameras, and if you sell it then we can all go home happy and work out a fan-friendly way to end this."  
  
"When?" she presses. As usual, he averts his gaze and avoids the question.  
  
"Later. Look," he nods out the door, at the car that's pulled up. "They're back. Now, just . . . play the part, okay?" He frowns at her, the same way he did when she opened the hotel room door to him, and he saw she was wearing unrelieved black and no makeup. He'd told her to fix her face, and she refused, so he told her to at least bring her grey sweater, because Justin went out in a grey toque, and apparently people think it's cute when they match.  
  
She's actually grateful she obeyed him and brought the sweater. She uses it as a shield when she greets Justin, as though the younger boy's nervous smile and soft-spoken attempts to ask her how she is are just one more hydra head, waiting to swallow her whole.  
  
Which, in a way, they kind of are.  
  
"I'm fine," she says, "can we just go?"  
  
Then she feels bad because it isn't his fault he's gay (Pastor Al would disagree, of course, but Pastor Al was a pervert who felt her up during the Christmas pageant when she played Mary, so she had to bop him over the head with Baby Jesus, and the less said about that the better. Suffice to say Pastor Al is not the measure by which she takes her value of who can help himself and who can't) but at the same time it isn't any less Justin's fault than it is hers, and she feels, however irrationally, that she should at least hate him as much as she hates herself right now.  
  
Which is a hell of a lot, really.  
  
Justin just nods, though, and escorts her down to the pavement. He looks like he understands, and she wonders if somebody was hauling him around by the arm earlier today, too.  
  
It isn't fair. She doesn't want them to get away with this; doesn't want them to ruin London for her. London is awesome. It's old and new and beginning again, always, cycling through its own self like some ancient mythical thing that can't be killed, though God knows enough people have tried.  
  
She runs her hand over the wall of a building as they pass, trying to absorb some of the regenerative spirit for herself, only to be herded back in line by security. She glares at the older man, but it's lost on him, he's already eyeing some dude with a camera across the street, and fine, whatever, let him be that way.  
  
She's just about to ask if they can go in somewhere with a back door, and just duck out and lie low for the rest of the day (let them think Justin's pulled her aside to feel her up, she doesn't even care anymore) when she gets the first text.  
  


> From: David  
>  U were great last night  
> 11:02 am 07-NOV-11

  
  
She smiles. Really smiles. Then she takes a moment to channel her inner Valley girl, and texts back:  
  


> From: Selena  
>  Omg r u my 1 nite stand?? how'd u get this #??  
> 11:02 am 07-NOV-11

  
  
Which, yeah, maybe it's a little lame, but she knows he'll laugh because that's his kind of joke.  
  
She was right.  
  


> From: David  
>  Lol. funny girl. no, srsly. fire = cool  
> 11:03 am 07-NOV-11

  
  
Yeah, she thought he'd like that part. She's still smiling, thumbs flying nimbly over the keyboard, replying:  
  


> From: Selena  
>  Fire = way too hot. Trust me.  
> 11:03 am 07-NOV-11

  
  
Justin leans in, murmurs "they're looking" and she follows his gaze, sees the cameras, and without missing a beat her arms and the phone are hidden in the sleeves of her sweater-shield. They've got this routine down cold, by now. Justin does his bit, taking her bag and carrying it for her so she can keep her hands hidden from the all-seeing telephoto lens. Then the phone chirps inside her sweater, so she makes like she's leaning into Justin, listening to something he says. He cooperates, covering her with his shadow (he's such a sweetheart, he's going to make some lucky man so happy someday) so she can slip the phone free and check the reply.  
  


> From: David  
>  No, u= way too hot. trust me.  
> 11:04 am 07-NOV-11

  
  
Bad, this is very bad, because she's puddling up, and it's pretty much a guarantee nobody will need a fancy thousand-dollar lens to catch sight of Selena Gomez sobbing into her sweater-swaddled hands as her we-swear-he's-not-gay-no-really boyfriend tries to cuddle her. What with her fatigue and the pressure that's been building over the past couple years, she's pretty sure she could deliver a breakdown you'd be able to see from outer space.  
  
"Damn," she mumbles, and Justin, who is as trapped as she is and understands what she needs, promptly steers her off the pavement and into a little pub that they probably aren't old enough to be in, but that's the one great thing about being them: who's going to stop them?  
  
"Can you give us some space?" he asks their security. Then he smiles sweetly, and one of them, the youngest one by far, blushes, and oh, so it's like that, is it? she wonders, and gives him a knowing look.  
  
Justin refuses to meet her gaze, though, until his guys have moved off a little. Then he smiles at her phone, and asks "so what's his hotness up to, today?"  
  
He's such a doll.  
  
"I don't know," she shakes her head, and hears her own voice thick with unshed tears. "I just . . . what are we doing here? Really?" she looks at him searchingly, and he squirms, and she feels bad because she forgets, sometimes, that he's those two whole years younger than she is, and somehow the difference between seventeen and nineteen and what you think you know at each age is so horribly huge.  
  
"Just keeping up appearances," he says, but that isn't him talking. She calls him on it.  
  
"Is that what you were told today was all about?"  
  
He blushes. "Maybe. Weren't you?"  
  
Her expression darkens, and she cradles her phone protectively.  
  
"No, I was told by the ApeMan that my mother gave up any chance at having a normal teenage life to raise me and give me the very best life has to offer, so I owe it to her and her sacrifice to smile and stay sweet and make Disney happy until the final episode of Wizards airs and then I can fuck whoever I want."  
  
Justin's eyes are startled, Bambi-huge in his face.  
  
"Really?"  
  
Bless his heart, he's so innocent. She sighs, shrugs, and says "whatever. It's almost over, now."  
  
Justin nods, then a cloud steals over his face. "Well, for you and David, anyway."  
  
Guilt twists her gut like a knife. Because yeah, she's almost free, but God knows when he'll be—at least, as long as he wants to keep selling albums to lust-struck tweens, all starry-eyed over the notion that the fluttery feelings in their bellies mean it's somehow Meant to Be; that biology begets destiny. She's just months away from freedom, and here she is, sulking in a pub because the guy she'd really like to be here with is not this perfectly sweet kid, this closeted Canadian popstar who is probably going to be sitting here with lots of other girls (who'd rather be somewhere else) before he can finally come clean, and come out.  
  
"Sorry," she says, and means it. He smiles, because he knows she does.  
  
"Naw, s'cool. I get it. I mean," pondering, "not the Disney part. I, uh, gotta tell you I still find it hard to believe half what you told me, but I know it's got to be true, if you say so . . . but yeah, I get most of it. Well," he grins, and even though he's so not her type (and she is so VERY not his) she can see it, for a second—that thing that makes his fans lose their shit every time he smiles, "I get enough of it, at least."  
  
The pub feels cozier than it did a minute ago. They snuggle down in the booth together, both staring at her phone. When it chirps again, he laughs.  
  
"Well go on, don't leave him hanging! Let him know you're alive and miserable without him, and all those other things I know he's going to love to hear."  
  
So she leans back against her boyfriend-who-isn't, and picks up the phone to read the messages from her boyfriend-who-can't-be:  
  


> From: David  
>  u ok?  
> 11:09 07-NOV-11

  
 

> From: David  
>  worried. calling u  
> 11:12 07-NOV-11

  
  
Then the phone rings. When she answers she hopes he can only hear the longing in her voice, not the misery, when she says "hey."  
  
"Hey, you had me kind of scared, there. What is it? The ApeMan hovering again?"  
  
"No, I left him back at the hotel. It's just . . ." she looks around, and sighs. "You know."  
  
He does.  
  
"But still, London, right? That's got to be great! You partying? Got that kid laid yet? Those European gigolos, they must be good, right? I mean, you've seen their porn—"  
  
It works. She's laughing, really laughing, for the first time in days.  
  
"You're horrible! No, we've walked around, and we saw some stuff, and it's _London,_ and it's so beyond belief, which means I should be grateful, I guess, but . . ."  
  
Again, he gets it.  
  
"We'll go back," he promises. "Together. Just a few months more, then we'll go back there and we'll do it right, okay? It's not much longer now."  
  
"I know." She bites her lip, and tries to pretend the friendly arm around her belongs to somebody else. Somebody too far away to touch.  
  
He must hear something in her voice, even with an ocean between them, because she can hear how worried he is as he asks "what is it?"  
  
She wants to tell him about the ApeMan, shuttling her from one venue to the next like she's a flight risk. She wants to tell him how surreal the EMAs were, how fun and fabulous and invigorating, and what a rush she always gets when she's on stage and doing what she knows she was always meant to do. She wants to tell him that they need to find a nice boy for Justin, and maybe Zac knows somebody, and they could ask him about it when they're in town next . . . but instead she just holds the phone a little closer, trembles in the shadow of this ugly, sucking, many-headed lie that's trying to swallow them both, and fights it by telling him the truest truth of all.  
  
"I wish you were here."  
  
Everything else can wait.  
  


~***~

**Author's Note:**

> All of this is, of course, purely speculative and written for entertainment purposes only. No disrespect or infringement whatsoever is intended.
> 
> However, my sympathy for all the young artists who have been put through the Marketing Machine is genuine. I hope that much, at least, rings true.


End file.
